Robert Drozd, Rebecca Melton and Carol Strock settle down to business. Carol's brother Tom would take laurels this year. Both are not too distant graduates of the WBC Juniors.	Marilyn Koleszar, back to WBC after a long absence, tries her hand at the big event. Settlers is one of the few "serious" events that draws over 100 players to a single start.

Spiel das Jahre 1995 ...

For 2010 Settlers used the same format as last years tourney with one small difference. The start was altered so that each player placed a Settlement/Road, a City/Road, followed by another Road. The resources given to each player was based on the city location and allowed players to collect one per location. This gets the game off to a quicker start and also helps keep the games moving along with an average of 90 minute rounds (including setup and initial placements). This format worked well with no games called due to time.

The format has players settling in three preliminary games. Each game is worth Tournament points, which are based on placing 1st, 2nd, 3rd, or 4th (5, 3, 2, and 1 points, respectively). The 16 highest scoring settlers at the end of three rounds advance to the semi-finals. The tournament remained fun to run. I did ask for feedback from all players and was rewarded with lots of suggestions and positive feedback. Thanks to last year's inputs, most players came back to me with positive feedback, lots of praise and knowing that a favorite game of mine can be played by all and have a great time is my reward. I am very happy to continue the tournament in 2011 and look forward to it.

The first round filled 27 tables. Attrition from losses and reinforcements from late arrivals left us with 18 tables in Round 2 and 17 in Round 3 so the majority of the field hung around for all three Preliminary rounds. The elimination rounds advanced 16 players including three 15-point qualifiers. A 10-point qualifier earned the last seat. Thomas Saal, Rob Kircher, Jeremy Osteen and Ron Secunda won their semi-final games to guarantee that we would have our 12th different champion in as many years. Doug Galullo and Thomas Strock earned fifth and sixth place laurels with 9 VPs in their semi-final games.

Thomas took blue and was first, Ron took white, Jeremy was third with orange and Rob was red with the last choice.

EARLY GAME: At Rob's first turn he was able to collect enough cards to trade in for a city on his settlement, giving him a big advantage. Round 2 saw our first robber as he seemed to come out of hiding. By the third round, most had two settlements with Ron still a leg up, having three. Jeremy went the Development card route and was buying them at every opportunity.

MIDGAME: Rounds 5 thru 7 were the busiest; everyone enjoyed a good base income. Numbers high on the rolls were 5 and 9 and they were seemingly rolled every other turn. At this point Rob also started into the Development card pile, but Jeremy was the first to play a soldier. By Round 9, Jeremy took the Largest Army title. Scores on the board were: Thomas: 4, Ron: 7, Jeremy: 7, Rob: 7. Most players had at least one development card in their hand as well. Midgame was also when the robber was most daring, with five 7s rolled in ten tries, slowing the game between Rounds 9 and 12.

LATE GAME: With three players showing seven VPs, Rob took the lead when he played Year of Plenty, taking two wheat and built a settlement, giving him eight points. The next turn (Round 11) he played his Monopoly card, pulling in ten bricks, building three roads and a settlement. Round 12 saw Rob playing a road building card, giving him a prime location to build another settlement. Round 13 saw Ron's third city appear. He now had eight points on the board. By the end of Round 13, he led with nine points to eight for Ron, seven for Jeremy and only four for Thomas.

Round 14 was the last, but not without an excellent move by Thomas. He was able to build a road and settlement and block the location that Rob was trying to expand into. With the map completely filled, Rob would have to either start upgrading settlements or buy development cards for a win, but since he was now being cut off from trading, it would have to be on his own. Jeremy was able to play a soldier on Rob, blocking his Ore, but in the end, Rob was able to roll the hard 10, get another Ore and buy a card - that yielded a VP and the title!

The ladies were well represented with 31 in the field, but none were able to break into the top six and we have yet to have a female champ in 12 years.	Stephanie Welch is a real gamer. Any young lady who is not intimidated by two days against 50 Hannibal sharks is a keeper in my book.